Kuwait Announces Second Offshore Discovery

24 Jan 2025 Issue: 68 / 4 By: Jamie Ingram

Kuwait has notched up back-to-back discoveries with the first two wells of its offshore exploration campaign. The latest, Julaiah, is smaller than the first Nokhetha find but its proximity to onshore infrastructure should aid development.

Kuwait Oil Company (KOC) announced on 20 January that it has made a second oil and gas discovery through its ongoing six-well offshore drilling program. Having confirmed commerciality of the Nokhetha discovery (2.1bn barrels oil, 5.1tcf gas) in July, KOC now says that the Julaiah-2 well has also been successful, estimating the presence of 800mn barrels of medium-quality crude oil alongside 600 bcf of associated gas for a total of 950mn boe.

KOC has long been confident on the potential resource base from its offshore, with CEO Ahmad al-Eidan telling MEES in 2023 that “the results of our early reviews and previous studies show very promising production potential from this significant resource within Kuwait’s hydrocarbons system” (MEES, 23 September 2023). It remains early days, but the initial results at least point towards the potential for offshore production to be realized. Two wells drilled, two discoveries made. (CONTINUED - 721 WORDS)